With the increased criminal events in the society, such as illegally possessing weapons, drug trafficking, smuggling, inflicting bodily injuries, murdering, etc., many law enforcement staffs, particularly policemen, got injured or killed or were missing when they went out on duty. It is also quite often that disputes arise between traffic policemen on duty and traffic violators. To ensure the safety of policemen on duty, increase the accuracy of evidence collection by the law enforcement staffs, reduce the disputes and suits, and to protect the interests of the general public, in-car video systems have gradually become important products, for which the US Police budgets every year.
Generally, the in-car video system for police patrol car comprises a wireless microphone, a base station, a video camera, and a computer or a digital video recorder (DVR). The wireless microphone is usually carried about by a policeman on duty, the base station is mounted on a police patrol car, and the wireless microphone is able to wirelessly communicate with the base station. U.S. Pat. No. 7,119,832 discloses a wireless microphone for use with an in-car video system, which comprises a base station, a video recording device, and a wireless microphone. The in-car video system of U.S. Pat. No. 7,119,832 is characterized in that the video recording device is electrically connected to the base station and has two operating modes, namely, recording mode and standby mode, and that, according to the current operating mode of the video recording device, the base station can transmit a radio-frequency (RF) signal to remotely control the wireless microphone to turn on or to enter the standby state, and that the wireless microphone further comprises a visual indicator for informing the user of the current operating state of the in-car video system.
Usually, a policeman going on duty would first turn on the in-car video system on the police patrol car before he starts performing task. Then, the policeman has to manually enter his name and policeman ID number, and further enters a personal password to log in to the computer for confirming his user identity. Finally, the policeman has to register the wireless microphone to the base station to pair the wireless microphone to the base station before he can go out on duty. That is, each time before the policeman goes on duty, he has to first manually input personal information and complete the registration and pairing process for the wireless microphone and base station to be used. It is of course very inconvenient to do so.
Further, the police patrol car is equipped with various apparatuses such that the available space is largely reduced. To protect the policemen in the space-limited police patrol car against getting injured in the event of an accident, relevant safety regulations prohibit the mounting of large-sized articles on the dashboard or the roof of the car. However, according to the currently available wireless microphone systems, the registration contacts via which the wireless microphone is registered to the base station are provided on the bulky base station while the latter is frequently required to be mounted in the car at some place that is not easily accessible by the user, bringing inconveniences to the policemen.
Moreover, most of the currently available wireless microphone systems are so designed that every base station can only work with one wireless microphone. In the case that two or more policemen go out on duty and use the same police patrol car, two or more base stations must be mounted in the car. However, with the space-limited car, it would be very difficult to mount these base stations at proper positions therein.